


Saint Jude

by brazenlyunabashedlyshamelessly



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 21:43:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6257008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brazenlyunabashedlyshamelessly/pseuds/brazenlyunabashedlyshamelessly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky remembers some stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saint Jude

“Didja know that there’s a patron saint of lost causes?” Steve asks Bucky. The two of them are sitting on Bucky’s lumpy bead, elbows bumping on occasion. He’s got an enormous book resting on his bony knees, brows furrowed as he stares intently at the page in front of him. His eyesight isn’t too great, but for reading it’s okay.

Bucky keeps sneaking peeks at him every few seconds, the pallor of Steve’s skin worrying him.

The night before had been rough, with Steve’s wheezing breaths keeping the whole orphanage awake. It had gone on for hours until Bucky had finally given in. Creeping over to Steve’s bed as quietly as he could, Bucky had nudged Steve over.

“Just keep breathin’, Stevie. Just keep breathin’,” Bucky had whispered as he’d crawled in beside him. 

Teeth chattering as the fever rushed through him, Steve hadn’t been able to answer. He’d just inched closer to Bucky. And so, with fear making his stomach hurt, Bucky had pulled the other boy close and willed him to make it through the night. If he held Steve tight enough, death wouldn’t be able to take him.

He’d taken to praying, even though Bucky still isn’t too sold on the whole thing. After all, how many times had he asked God to send him and Steve parents, or to fix Steve lungs so he could play outside like all the other kids?

Maybe God is just too busy. Bucky figures he’s got better things to do than listen to a twelve year old orphan.

“Do they got a patron saint of the filthy rich?” Bucky asks now. “‘Cause that’s the fella I wanna talk to.”

“That’d be…” Steve pauses to flip the pages over until he reaches the index, scanning the list of names. “... Jerome Emilani, patron saint of the wealthy.” He frowns over at Bucky. “You sure you should be prayin’ to him?”

“Whadaya mean?”

“Well…” Steve purses his lips as he thinks it through. His voice is still hoarse from all the coughing he’d done last night. “I figure, you pray to ‘em if you qualify, not to ask ‘em to make ya rich.” 

“So I can’t pray to ol’ what’s-his-name ‘cause I ain’t wealthy?” Bucky demands.

“There’s a reason I picked Saint Jude, Buck,” Steve says innocently, but his eyes are doing that thing they do when he’s trying not to smile. 

“Hey!” Bucky squawks. He drops the yoyo onto the bed, and then leans over to give Steve an indignant poke in the ribs. Steve laughs, a raspy sound so at odds with his usual donkey hee haw. Worry catches in Bucky’s chest again; he wonders if this is what Steve feels like when he can’t breathe.

“I wasn’t talkin’ ‘bout you, Buck.”

Unexpectedly sombre all of a sudden, Steve stares down at the massive book on his lap. His fingers are tracing lightly over the worn pages, but Bucky doesn’t think he’s really seeing the words. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Bucky says loudly. “You’re not a… a…” He won’t say the words  _ lost cause _ . 

Because Steve  _ isn’t _ . He’s gonna get the hell outta this place, and change the world someday. Maybe even become president, or something. Bucky  _ knows _ it.

Steve smiles, but it doesn’t fit right on his face. 

“You been prayin’ harder than usual, Buck? ‘Cause I heard Sister Bernice talkin’ to the doc last week. They don’t think I’m gonna make it through the winter.”

Mouth open, Bucky can’t make any words come out. He spares a moment to mentally curse Sister Bernice and that quack doctor for letting Steve hear that. Scowling, Bucky straightens up to give Steve a look.

“They been sayin’ that every winter,” Bucky points out. “An’ look.” He waves a hand at Steve. “You’re still breathin’, an’ you’re gonna keep breathin’. Don’t neither of ‘em know what they’re talkin’ about.”

Neither of them say anything for a few minutes. Steve twists around to place the heavy tome on the bed behind them; their shoulders brush.

“It’s gonna be rough, Buck. I can feel it already, an’ it’s only October.”

Steve’s voice is gentle, and Bucky hates it. He hates it  _ so damn much _ . Because underneath it all, he can hear a certain amount of acceptance. Like Steve is okay with  _ dying _ , and leaving Bucky all alone.

“I dunno what the hell you’re talkin’ about,” Bucky insists. “You’re gonna pull through, just like ya always do.” He folds his hands in his lap, refusing to meet Steve’s gaze as he continues, “I don’t want ya to leave me.”

“Yeah, Buck, I know.” Casting a nervous glance around, Steve reaches out to give Bucky’s hand a quick squeeze. 

That soft touch stays with Bucky for a long time.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More than eighty years have passed since that afternoon. Bucky’s sitting on the couch in Steve’s apartment, legs drawn up beneath him. It’s strange, the memories that come back to him. Sometimes he hears screams and blood and death; other times it’s completely benign. He’s in a room full of children with spoons scraping the bottom of their bowls for any porridge they might have missed.

Today, Bucky finds himself thinking about Saint Jude. He wonders if Steve still prays.

A knock at the front door shakes Bucky free from his thoughts; automatically, Bucky’s hand drops down to the gun that isn’t there. 

“Whoa, easy there, Buck. It’s just the pizza guy.”

Looking over at Steve, who’d been sketching quietly on the loveseat across from him, Bucky feels his cheeks heat in embarrassment. He hates that Steve feels the need to soothe him, as though he were some wild animal.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Don’t worry about it.” Steve smiles at him, but it’s too similar to the strained expression from Bucky’s memory to be of any comfort. He nods wordlessly.

Steve hurries over to the front door, pulling it open to find a sullen looking teenager slouching in the hallway, pizza boxes in hand.

“I got an order for Mr Rogers.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Steve says brightly.

“That’ll be twenty six-fifty,” the delivery guy drawls.

“Got it right here.”

Feeling like he ought to be doing something, Bucky unfolds himself from the couch to grab them each a plate, and a knife and fork. He knows eating pizza with cutlery is strange, but the last time he’d tried eating with his hands, he’d been hit by a panic attack that had taken Steve forever to talk him down from. 

Bucky emerges from the kitchen to find Steve placing the pizza on the coffee table, and he looks up to give Bucky an appreciative smile.

“Thanks.”

Self-conscious, Bucky mumbles a reply before taking a seat on the floor. Even though Steve’s couches are a far cry from those modern, expensive monstrosities Tony Stark favours, Bucky doesn’t want to risk getting food on them. The part of him that’s from  _ before _ doesn’t relish messing on the carpet either. 

He fiddles with his knife and fork for a moment, waiting for Steve to pass him his box. It’s still deeply ingrained, waiting on someone else to give him the okay to have something.

It hadn’t happened very often.

Casually--so much so that it has to be forced--Steve passes the food over, and accepts his own knife and fork. And for the next half hour or so, they eat in relative silence, the only sound that of the TV.

Bucky doesn’t finish his pizza. Instead, he pushes the remaining third of a slice around his plate. He’s been told that his order of just plain ham and cheese is boring, but the truth is, intense flavours make Bucky’s stomach lurch. The same goes with strong food smells. For the first few weeks after Bucky had found Steve, he’d gorged himself on whatever Steve had given him, only to retch it all up later.

Now, he’s more cautious about what he eats.

They watch an entire episode of Megafactories before Steve gets up. He’s gathering up the plates and leftovers when Bucky speaks.

“I can do that. If you want.”

Delight brightens Steve’s expression for a moment before he carefully composes himself. Bucky feels a pang of guilt that he doesn’t initiate conversation more often.

“Tell you what, I’ll wash if you dry,” Steve suggests.

Bucky catches himself nodding, and forces himself to answer verbally.

“Okay.”

It’s not much, but Steve seems happy. They do the dishes in companionable silence--what do you talk about when you do this?--and Steve rummages around looking for plastic containers to put the pizza into. Bucky finds himself hesitating, his question from before niggling at him for some reason.

_ Does Steve still pray? _

He doesn’t know why it matters. Even if Bucky did still believe in God, it’s not as though they’d be on speaking terms. But Steve had always had faith, even if it wasn’t built along a strict Catholic interpretation.

“What’s up?” Steve asks when he notices Bucky lingering. “You want somethin’ else? I think we got ice cream in the freezer, if--”

“No,” Bucky says loudly, cutting Steve off. He shifts uncomfortably, his loud voice startling even him. Bucky is sure to keep his voice at a reasonable volume when he continues, “I wanted… to ask you something. If that’s okay.”

“Course, Buck,” Steve answers immediately. “You can ask me whatever you want.”

Steve does that a lot, unqualified acceptance of whatever Bucky braves asking for. That fact doesn’t do much to ease Bucky’s discomfort.

“Earlier, I was-I was remembering,” he stammers. “That day you told me ‘bout S-Saint Jude.”

It takes a second for Steve to recall the incident, and when he does, he grins. 

“Jeez, yeah. I remember that. Mostly ‘cause that book of saints weighed about as much as I did.” His expression sobers up quickly as the rest of the details come to him. “Thought I was gonna die that winter.”

Again with the nodding. Bucky experiences a surge of frustration at himself.

“I w-w-was wondering if you-you…” He scowls as the stuttering gets worse. After so many years of doing nothing but issuing mission reports, it’s almost as though Bucky’s forgotten how to have an actual conversation. His metal hand clenches at his side.

To his credit, Steve manages to keep any pity off his face. Instead, he appears to be the picture of patience, and Bucky feels shame crawling in there with the self-directed fury.

“Do you still pray?” He shoves the words out, holding himself tense.

It’s harder for Steve to keep from reacting, and surprise darts across his expression before he can stop it. Bucky doesn’t blame him; it really isn’t any of his fucking business.

“Th-that’s not--” Bucky inhales sharply. Shaking his head, he begins to back out of the kitchen when Steve stops him.

“Hey, no, Buck, it’s fine,” he says hastily. “I--Yeah, I still pray. Even to Saint Jude.”

Maybe if he sticks to short sentences, he can reduce the stuttering.

“Why?”

Steve frowns, but Bucky knows it isn’t at him. The way his brows furrow is familiar to Bucky, and his fingers itch to smooth the expression.

_ Was that something he’d been allowed to do before? _

“I dunno,” Steve answers finally. “I mean, after you d--” He cuts himself off. “After you fell, I was so  _ angry _ . But, uh, y’know, I’ve never been to great at givin’ anyone the silent treatment. Not even God.” There’s a wry twist to Steve’s lips now as he meets Bucky’s gaze. 

“And then, after I woke up, I felt… lost. Hopeless. Saint Jude seemed as good a guy as any to yell at. Even if it was just in my head.”

This makes sense to Bucky, even as something in his chest clenches at the thought of Steve feeling that way. He nods, is about to back away, when Steve continues.

“Now I pray to say thanks.”

“For what?”

Steve won’t look at him now. His fingers are twisting at the hem of his shirt in a nervous gesture.

“You,” he answers finally. 

“Me?” Bucky asks in confusion.

Nodding, Steve’s gaze is on the floor; the material of his shirt is beginning to stretch. 

“I’m just… Jesus, Buck, I’m so glad you’re here. When I thought--” He laughs suddenly, but there’s no humour in it. “Always thought I’d be the first to go, ya know? With the bum lungs an’ the bum heart. And then after, with the war, bein’  _ Captain America _ …” Steve trails off. “Never thought I’d have to live without you.”

Bucky doesn’t know how to respond to that. A part of him wants to pull Steve close and hold him tight. Maybe, if he was feeling brave enough, he could promise that he wasn’t going anywhere.

He doesn’t do any of those things. Instead, he reaches out to squeeze Steve’s hand. 

It’s not much. 

But for right now, it’s enough.


End file.
